Leg and Off: Should Punjab Kings retain Sam Curran ahead of IPL 2025 auction?

With the 2025 edition of the Indian Premier League scheduled for next summer, franchises are already busy readying their rosters and preparing their strategies for the auction that is about to come.

With this auction reported to be a mega one, in which almost every player except a bare minimum of those retained are expected to be on the market, several franchises will be keen on making a killing.

Punjab Kings (PBKS), among those very few franchises who are yet to win their maiden IPL title, have a big decision to make: to keep or to release Sam Curran, the English all-rounder who has almost been at the backbone of their side since 2023.

The 26-year-old is an extremely promising proposition in the shortest format of the game given that he can fire with both the bat and the ball in hand. His ability to get the new ball to swing also makes him a fearful bowler to face up to.

Having played a season with PBKS back in 2019, Curran moved south to the Chennai Super Kings for a couple of years before relocating to Mohali. It is fair to say that he has developed a lion-sized fanbase for himself up north.

Curran's willingness to go above and beyond for the team he is representing has always endeared him to the owners, supporters and pundits in general. His cheerful nature and ever-present smiles often win him fans.

In the last two seasons, he has been brilliant for PBKS on the field, and there is very little argument supporting them releasing him into the open market. With the bat in hand, he amassed 276 and 270 runs in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

His strike rate in the corresponding years is 136 and 127, respectively, which speaks highly about his batting prowess against the white ball. The Kings admire him so much that they nominated him to become captain last season when Shikhar Dhawan was ruled out with an injury. He even opened the innings.

Curran is a player with a big heart and the right attitude

With the ball in hand, Curran has often repaid the faith shown upon him by the team management, and this can be best demonstrated by the 10 and 13 wickets he picked up in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

The Surrey all-rounder's nagging line and length make him incredibly difficult to score against, and he proves himself and his teammates right by almost always bowling to his field and not giving away too many looseners.

However, one of the major causes of concern for PBKS is the economy rate at which Curran has delivered his overs. In 2023, he went at 10.22 runs per over, and this did not improve much in 2024, when he conceded his runs at 10.14.

Overall, in T20s, Curran is not the most economical bowler in the world, as was seen in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup held earlier this year in the USA and the West Indies. His economy rate of 8.81 proves as much.

Hence, despite the impressive showings Curran has brought out in the two seasons he has been a part of PBKS in his second stint, his economical bowling (or lack thereof) is a major cause of worry and one that the franchise will keep a tab on.

An economically wise decision has to be taken

As for whether PBKS want to retain Curran ahead of the mega auction, it is a question of a lot of ifs and buts. For this to materialise, we have to consider the options that the management has in the first place.

While the auction purse has gone up significantly for the franchises by INR 20 crore each, they have been set a stiff benchmark to follow to retain the players that they feel are dear to their hearts.

If PBKS decide to make Curran the first player they are keen on retaining, they will see INR 18 crore get deducted from their overall purse. If he is the second or third player, that figure will be INR 14 crore or INR 11 crore respectively.

While a lot of economic factors apply to the IPL auction such as the prime ones of demand and supply, PBKS will have to analyse for themselves whether they feel Curran is of such high value, that so much of money gets deducted from their purse.

If the management feels that it can take the risk of letting Curran go into the open market and pick him back into the side for less than INR 10 crore, then that would be the better option for them than to get restricted inside such high brackets.

The England vs Australia T20I series held in September this year will not be very far from the management's mind, especially the clobbering that Curran received in the hands of Travis Head in the first match.

While emotionally, it does not make sense to let go of such a high-value player, economically, it will perhaps be the best for PBKS to allow Curran to get released and then perhaps use the Right to Match card - which allows a franchise to match the highest bid to buy a player they owned previously - and bring him back.